‘They are patient and full of cunning,’ said Paul Bock. ‘The Third Reich was planned to last for one thousand years; Hitler himself said so. What is thirty or forty years to such people?’ He got up to put his plate in the sink. A floorboard creaked under his weight.
‘And you think these people are starting a Fourth Reich?’ said Stuart. ‘In what way is my name involved with such plans?’
‘We got your name from the computer,’ said Paul Bock. ‘We got a print-out and committed it to memory before destroying it. There were many names, each with a code word, the significance of which we have not yet decided; your name was the only one which sounded unmistakably Jewish It seemed to us impossible that you would be a supporter of their aims. Therefore you must be an intended victim.’
The two men, Jimmy and Paul Bock, looked at one another. They realized that they were not convincing their visitor. It had not been planned this way: to see Charles Stein up here in this grubby little house with the smell of yesterday’s boiled cabbage coming from next door. The plan had been to meet with him in the lobby of some luxurious hotel in central London, or even take him for a meal in a restaurant. Paul Bock looked round the greasy kitchen. Why should anyone take them seriously once they had seen this dingy slum?
‘It’s all true,’ said Jimmy. ‘You may not believe it, but it’s all true.’
‘We’ve done all we could,’ said Paul Bock, continuing the conversation with his friend as if their visitor had already departed. ‘We warned him.’
Boyd Stuart finished his egg. ‘What about some hard information?’ he said. ‘What about more names?’
‘We wondered if you could be on some sort of death list, Mr Stein,’ said Paul Bock politely.
‘And I’m wondering if you have been watching too much late night TV,’ said Stuart.
‘Get stuffed,’ said Jimmy. ‘We told you, and that’s that.’
Stuart pushed his plate aside and stood up to get a paper towel to wipe his fingers. Through the rain-spattered windows he saw a grim industrial landscape and the Grand Union canal, its stagnant water littered with ice-cream wrappers and floating beer cans. A narrow boat, timbers rotting, had settled low enough for scummy water to lap on to its deck.
Beyond the canal, the rusting tracks and rained shed were the remains of a railway system which had once made the world gasp with envy. A diesel locomotive came into view, hooted and stopped. Stuart tossed the paper towel into the bin under the sink and said, ‘What about a little more evidence?’
Paul Bock said, ‘We’ll talk about it.’ He took Jimmy out of the room and when they returned Bock was wearing the jacket of his smart grey suit.
‘Can you give me a lift to the tube?’ Bock said, looking out of the window. ‘I think I’ll need my raincoat.’
‘Certainly.’ Stuart turned back to Jimmy when he got as far as the landing. ‘But why the swastika badges and the Nazi decorations?’
Jimmy smiled. ‘Then I don’t have to feel bad about lying and cheating my customers.’
‘I see,’ said Stuart. He followed Paul Bock down the narrow staircase into the gloomy shop and out of the front door. Summer seemed a long way away; the clouds were still grey and there was only the faintest glimmer of sunshine on the horizon. They got into the Aston and Stuart followed the insane maze of one-way streets to the underground railway station.
‘I wish you’d give me more information,’ said Stuart as Paul Bock got out of the car. ‘Give me some details of the Trust: what is its address? Do you know how it is funded?’
The German leant close to the window. ‘Perhaps next time,’ he said.
‘Why not now? If my life is in danger the way you say it is, why not now?’
‘Because we don’t believe you are Mr Charles Stein,’ said the German. ‘Jimmy thinks you’re the police. I’m not certain who you are, but the computer print-out shows nearly one hundred million dollars against your name… I’ve worked in banks. You are not a man who’s ever had use of a fortune. Men who handle such money don’t come knocking on doors in King’s Cross early in the morning; they send others to do it for them. You tell Mr Stein to come in person.’ He smiled and was gone in the crowds hurrying into the station.
22
Boyd Stuart did not view every foot of the Nazi newsreel film. It would have taken five working days to look at all of it: a fact that was clearly evident from the film tins which were stacked ceiling high in the two fireproof store rooms downstairs in the basement, along the corridor from the ‘viewing room’, as the cinema was officially called.
Two ‘research clerks’ had begun viewing and sorting the footage as soon as the first reels arrived. It had come to the SIS Ziggurat building south of the river via a cover address in Wardour Street. Most of it came through agencies and libraries but there was privately owned footage too, and some poor quality pirated material which had been made by reversal process from positives. All of the film submitted was in response to the news that a film company, compiling a documentary for TV, was paying top footage rates. It was wanted urgently but that was a normal requirement in the business of film and TV.
Boyd Stuart had spent all day screening the film that had been shortlisted for him. By the afternoon of Monday, July 16, he was growing dizzy with images of Adolf Hitler and his followers. He had watched the Führer staring stern-faced at maps, striding past ranks of soldiers, climbing into the Führerwagen of the train and climbing down from it, leaning out of its lowered windows to shake hands with Hitler Youths or accept flowers from flaxen-haired girls.
At four p.m. he first caught sight of the face he sought. He picked up the phone and told the projectionist to stop the film, mark the frame and bring it to the editing bench. Only fifteen minutes after that, he found the same man in two lengthy sequences of Hitler meeting Benito Mussolini alongside a train at Anlage Süd in August 1941. A large crowd of Hitler’s immediate staff had wanted to see the two dictators together, and there were many cameras in evidence amongst the German soldiers, SS men and Italians, jostling together on the raised wooden platform made especially for the dictators to alight from the train.
Stuart put the reel of film onto the editor’s flat bench. He wound it with his hand to find the frame he wanted, and held it illuminated and magnified on the small screen. He put a magnifier over the part of the image that interested him, but it enlarged the patterns of film grain and the texture of the viewing screen’s fresnel glass so that the picture became a confused blur, like some abstract painting.
Kitty King came into the room and put a cup of tea down by his elbow. ‘You’ve found something?’
‘Three different sequences, and there will be more.’
‘And this is the photo you found after the Wever farm explosion?’ She leant forward to study the big enlargement which was pinned over the bench.
‘Wever said he’d never worn one of those camouflage jackets before that journey to Merkers. I’ve looked up the dates and times of the American advance. That photo must have been taken at the salt mine on or about April 2, 1945. That’s Breslow next to him. The civilian is the one I’m trying to identify. Reichsbank Director Frank he was calling himself in 1945.’
‘And now you’ve found him?’
‘I think so but I’d like to find him enough times to get a positive identification.’
‘He’s in uniform for this one.’ She pointed at the lighted screen.
‘But the Germans let their security people wear any uniform and any rank they fancied when they were at work. I’ve got other photos that resemble him. Now I’ll enlarge them to some reasonable size.’
‘The dark room will curse you, Boyd. They’re up to their ears in work.’